


Point of View

by morganya



Category: Bandom
Genre: Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-05
Updated: 2014-03-05
Packaged: 2018-01-14 15:32:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1271830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganya/pseuds/morganya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for no_tags 2014, prompt #8 - Pete/Travie or Pete & Travie: meet ups, hook ups, or first time meeting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Point of View

In retrospect, he should have known it was impossible to prepare for Pete. Somehow he'd gotten the idea that this would be an almost-business meeting, which was nerve-racking in itself, but that was the extent of it.

If it was going to happen, he wasn't going to pretend to be something he wasn't. Later Pete teased him that he showed up backstage in Buffalo looking like he'd just rolled out of his nice warm ditch. Travis just figured that he needed to be honest about who he was or he'd regret it.

He didn't speak to Patrick that first night. He passed by the open dressing room and there was a little guy sitting on the couch with his head in his hands, looking totally lost.

"We're giving him space. Ray Charles died today," someone said in his ear.

It wasn't how he'd thought he'd first meet Pete Wentz. Travis said, "Oh…right. Is he going to be okay?"

"Hope so," Pete said. "Just can't talk to him when he's like this. Come on."

He sat in one of the venue's empty rooms quietly while Pete gave him the once-over twice. Later he thought he should have talked more, but at the moment he was sizing Pete up just as much. The two things Pete really said were "Taxi Driver is a really smart song," and "Yo, you got some ink?"

When he left the venue, he wasn't sure what exactly had just happened. He didn't know what he thought about Pete, or what Pete thought about him, and the possibility that the band would keep battling things out on their own seemed likely.

Then a couple weeks later he got a phone call and everything was different.

*****

They shared the same predilections. Travis preferred to keep his pills away from the rest of the band, because motherfuckers had a tendency to ask questions he didn't have time for. So he tended to hole up after shows so he could pop a few hydrocodone and relax.

Pete usually caught him at these moments. At first he thought it was because Pete was practically omniscient, which still wasn't out of the question. Later he thought that it was really because Pete also liked to bring his pill stash away from prying eyes.

Whatever it was, they took a share and share alike attitude towards it all. Pete liked his pills to have variety – muscle relaxants and benzodiazapines and painkillers and stimulants and mother's little helpers – and Travis didn't know why he didn't just stick with the opiates, which had less side effects.

"Branding," Pete told him while they were both sprawled out in the back room, away from everyone else. "Never thought I'd have to think about branding. Punk rock music, that's what I was thinking. Now you've got to be a media mogul."

"Yeah, but you like being a media mogul," Travis said.

"I like being in control. There's a difference."

"Do you have any more Dilaudid?"

"I have – I have a bunch of oxys."

"That'll fuck your stomach up. I'll trade you four Ativan for three of those."

"The dosage is all wrong. You're trying to stiff me."

"Don't be an asshole. I'm being fair as fuck."

There were a number of nights like that.

After Travis got the news about Pete, how he'd gone to Best Buy and then wound up in the hospital, he felt like the shittiest friend in the world. After that, he made sure not to share those nights with Pete any more.

*****

"The wrist is the shittiest place to get a tattoo," Pete said as the artist is preparing.

"Dude, I got one on my ribs and it hurt like a motherfucker. This is just taking a warm bath with some needles."

"Oh, _great._ "

"How do you have six thousand tattoos and you're the biggest pussy ever about them? Dude, suck it up."

"I don't fuckin' know. I don't know how I do anything. Will you hurry up?" Pete told the artist.

"Don't yell at her. She's just doing her thing."

"Yeah, yeah, you're right. Sorry. Sorry."

When the work actually started Pete acted like even more of a baby. He kept his wrist still but thrashed his legs and banged his hip with his free hand and made noises somewhere between dry heaving and orgasm.

"You're just showing off now."

"Don't you think if I was showing off, I'd try to look a little fuckin' cooler? _Ow!_ "

Travis laughed.

"I hate you so fucking much, you son of a bitch. Talk to me. Tell me a story. Do something – ow – so I won't think about this fuckin' needle."

"'We got just one shot of life,'" Travis said. "'Let's take it while we're still not afraid, because life is so brief and time is a thief when you're undecided. And like a fistful of sand, it can slip right through your hands.'"

"I know the song already. You really have to quote it?"

"Just giving you some motivation."

The tattoos matched up perfectly when they were done. Travis pressed his wrist, aching and with the ink still bleeding, against Pete's equally nasty-looking one and watched Young Hearts Be Free come together.

"Fit the pieces together, it makes a puzzle," Pete said. "Something weird and complete."

"You'd never know unless you were really looking," Travis said.

*****

He was taking his first sober look at the world, and Pete was shakily trying to do the same thing, so the only thing to do seemed to go stay at Pete's house so they could keep each other honest.

Pete's art came from a mostly raw, untrained place, and it felt nice to have Pete rely on him, asking questions about how to do a certain effect and giving him a structure. Somehow, they could fit themselves together and have something else come out of that.

"I never knew what I was doing my whole life," Pete told him, when they were both sleep-deprived and struggling to create. "Nothing. I knew I had to take care of everybody, but – I was pretty bad at it."

"That's a fucking lie," Travis said. "You've known what you wanted since you were thirteen years old, just like me. You just kept getting in your own way."

"This might sound stupid, but I always wanted to try to make sure everyone was okay. Me, I don't care. Fuck me, you know? I just don't want to think about you being out there on your own."

"Well," Travis said. "I'm not on my own now, am I?"

"I guess."

"Going to get used to that," Travis said. "I'm not about to walk away from you either."

*****

When he comes to visit Pete in Los Angeles, they sit in the backyard like two old men, trading war stories. Travis' girlfriend is watching Meagan, her belly beginning to show, play with Bronx and the dogs, and once in a while Travis hears her laughing.

"You think you want a girl or another boy?" Travis asks Pete.

"I want a healthy child that I can send to college. Dude, you should have a kid."

"I got dogs and my godson is having the time of his life over there. That's enough for now."

"Oh, okay," Pete says. He takes a sip of water and looks at Travis. "You ever think about the first time I met you?"

"All the time," he says.


End file.
